Homophonic Translation: Pas de lieu Rhone que nous

This is a term I just learned, although homophonic translation is familiar to anyone who’s laughed along to that Benny Lava video. It’s “translating” something by writing a phonetic approximation in another language, much like a mondegreen, but the “mis-hearing” bridges two languages.

For instance, I like to annoy my friend Lisa by homophonically translating things she says to me in French. If she says “C’est bon!” I respond “Bone.” If she says “C’est ça,” I answer, “Saw.” I also like to encourage guests to dig in at the start of a meal by announcing “Bony patoot!” By which I guess I mean, Don’t worry your skinny butt about getting fat.

For some reason, there is something particularly amusing about homophonic translations from English into “French”, by which I mean nonsense that looks like French and sounds like English. For example, if you grew up speaking English and can also pronounce French, try reading this little rhyme out loud:

Un petit d’un petit

S’étonne aux Halles

Un petit d’un petit

Ah! degrés te fallent

Indolent qui ne sort cesse

Indolent qui ne se mène

Qu’importe un petit d’un petit

Tout Gai de Reguennes

It was written by actor and wit Luis van Rooten. Recognize it? Here’s a visual clue.

I haven’t spoken French for years, but was fluent (reading/writing/speaking), and my pronunciation is still pretty good…..and I haven’t got a clue. What is it? All I can hear when I say it is the French, French accent, French definitions of the words, so maybe that’s in my way of trying to hear it as something else?

Characters in the novel make it up as they go along. Hard to ever tell if any of them really spoke Canuck. Note the ‘I told her…’ No indication in that phrase that what follows has even a modicum of truth. In fact the spirit of the novel would immediately suggest otherwise. All the more fun for those of us who have a tricky relationship with language.